WhatsApp to Share Your Data with Facebook — You have 30 Days to Stop It
Nothing comes for Free, as “Free” is just a relative term used by companies to develop a strong user base and then use it for their own benefits.
The same has been done by the secure messaging app WhatsApp, which has now made it crystal clear that the popular messaging service will begin sharing its users’ data with its parent company, Facebook.
However, WhatsApp is offering a partial opt-out for Facebook targeted ads and product related purposes, which I will let you know later in this article, but completely opting out of the data-sharing does not seem to be possible.
Let’s know what the company has decided to do with your data.
Of course, Facebook is willing to use your data to sell more targeted advertisements.
WhatsApp introduced some significant changes to its privacy policy and T&Cs today which, if accepted once, gives it permission to connect users’ Facebook accounts to WhatsApp accounts for the first time, giving Facebook more data about users for delivering more relevant ads on the social network.
The messaging service will also begin pushing users to share some of their account details, including phone numbers, with Facebook, allowing the social network to suggest phone contacts as friends.
When Facebook acquired WhatsApp for $19 Billion in 2014, users were worried about the company’s commitment to protecting its users’ privacy. But, WhatsApp reassured them that their privacy would not be compromised in any way.
“Respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA, and we built WhatsApp around the goal of knowing as little about you as possible,” said WhatsApp co-founder Jan Koum in a blog post published at that time.
Now the WhatsApp users are feeling betrayed by the company’s latest move.
However, you need not to worry about the contents of your WhatsApp messages, like words and images, as they are end-to-end encrypted, meaning that even the company cannot read them.
Ultimately, the two companies will be sharing, what they called, a limited amount of user data, which includes phone numbers and other information about users.
No Option to Completely Opt-Out of Data Sharing
If you think WhatsApp is more privacy conscious than Facebook’s Messenger, it is not anymore.
WhatsApp is offering a solution partially to opt out the data sharing, specifically for Facebook ad targeting and product-related purposes.
However, the company notes that data will still be shared “for other purposes such as improving infrastructure and delivery systems, understanding how our services or theirs are used, securing systems, and fighting spam, abuse, or infringement activities.”
So, those who are thinking to opt out of the data-sharing entirely: There’s no possible way to opt totally out.
Though one short solution is to stop using WhatsApp.
Source | thehackernews